Library board takes appropriate action: None

Respect for intellectual freedom and the First Amendment is alive and well in Chandler.

So there’s still a place in the city’s public libraries for the award-winning, but sometimes crass, alternative journalism of the Phoenix New Times as well as sarcastic, foul-mouthed and wickedly funny comedians such as George Carlin.

“The fact that you have to monitor your children doesn’t mean I as an adult shouldn’t be able to listen it,” said Lisa Blyler, a member of the Chandler Public Library Board.

On Nov. 15, Blyler and other average Chandler residents on the board gathered at the downtown library to discuss the future of four items that had been challenged. Chandler Library Manager Brenda Brown said her professional staff abides by the decisions of the citizen board, which places a great deal of power in the hands of a few residents to decide what the rest of the city might read. That got the attention of Chandler resident Sharon Flury, who isn’t on the board but attended the meeting to see what would happen.

“When they talk about removing materials from the general public, that really concerns me,” Flury told me.

By the end of the hourlong meeting, Flury had no reason to worry. The entire board revealed a keen insight for balancing the right to read material that probably will offend someone with the need to protect children from viewing something inappropriate for their age.

Chandler libraries are sensitive to the fact that many parents don’t want their children to read materials that might be perfectly fine for some adults, Brown said. That’s why the city’s four libraries have several classifications: young children, elementary school age, teenagers and adult. In some cases, a book or tape that the author crafted for a certain age group might be a little too graphic. So the library staff places such materials in area for older readers so such kids are less likely to accidentally come across them.

That option wasn’t available for the New Times or for an audio book by Carlin titled “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?” Those items already are shelved in the adult section. But one library patron complained New Times didn’t belong in a city branch housed at Basha High School, while another believed Carlin’s book was too “anti-Christian” to be lying around.

Blyler and her colleagues asked a number of questions to make it clear that the libraries weren’t essentially dropping these items into a kid’s lap. But the real choice came down to expecting parents to be involved in what their children are doing or taking the material away from everyone.

In defense of freedom, the board sided with protecting an adult’s right to read.